


Visionary You and Me

by Cerfblanc



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: 1990s, 2000s, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Brotherly Affection, Coming of Age, Domestic Violence, F/M, Gen, M/M, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-06-08 08:37:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15239568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerfblanc/pseuds/Cerfblanc
Summary: When Sam turns up missing, Nathan begins to think he’s the only one that has an idea of where his brother has vanished to—until Sam appears bruised and confused seven days later, with twenty-nine years worth of memories from the impending future.





	1. TWENTY-NINE YEARS

**Author's Note:**

> Hellooo, I had this idea in mind for quite some time, and my inspiration was boosted after I watched Netflix’s “Dark” (2017) which I really recommend if you enjoy anything time-travel-based on top of amazing character relationships. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this short story (will be at least twelve chapters), feedback/kudos would be very appreciated! <3

> 1987 / 1:08 P.M. / MORGANS’ RESIDENCE

 

 

It had felt like years, more than fifteen and over, the length of your typical worn-down marriage, the love and everything sweet sucked out of it from the bottom and inside-out.

It was like keeping a jar of honey in your top kitchen cupboard.

Forgetting that it was there, when in the midst of trying to find it you brush a dismissive thought over it, assuring yourself things will go back to normal, but then the thought turns out to be worth the timeframe of a decade—and only by then your honey has crystallised.

Only by then you find it, and only by then, do you realise.

You realise the honey was never worth your fifteen years.

Because honey can only be bought, it can never be properly earned and kept and preserved, nothing can be kept forever.

Like love.

It had been just over twenty-four hours since Cassandra Morgan’s husband had left for his work.

Cassandra Morgan was still looming over the kitchen sink.

The tap was dripping water into the basin every minute, defining the seconds, her fingers caressing the skin at the back of her left hand a little too harshly, owlishly blinking her hazel eyes into nothing, numbly wondering if she was the one who had it all wrong and not her husband.

But there’s nothing wrong, she thinks, so how could it be me?

It wasn’t her. It isn’t her. It’s not her at all.

Cassandra Morgan, wedded to an average man of an average salary and of an average everything—of average love and of average hate—of average loyalty.

Cassandra Morgan, mother of two boys, one that is a spitting image of her husband, and the other a spitting image of herself.

Cassandra Morgan, within the present, is debating whether or not her husband is slowly leaving her equation—her children’s equation—deteriorating from the family photo and cut and stuck in to another woman’s.

Yes, she thinks.

She stops tugging at her raw skin, and realises.

It’s never been her, and it never will be her.

 

 

 

> 1987 / 3:11 P.M. / THE SCHOOL GROUNDS

 

 

“Hey—Morgan!”

None of this was really necessary.

They just wanted to gain a title of some sort, to fish in some kind of petty public pride, shout and boast it off like it’s the catch of the day and will forever be the catch of that day and the day after that.

The title that practically screamed ‘weak’, was what they were getting, but they didn’t have the sense to know that.

Nathan had that sense.

He often wondered whether he was the only one in his small-town-small-minded school that actually had a clue of what reality was and how and when and where it would smack you in the face, and considering that he also often thought of being stuck in a time loop of sorts, living the same situation in the same spot of the playground, maybe he really was the only with a sense no other child had.

Or was born with, Nathan thought.

He liked to think of his theory that way. He liked thinking he was excluded, even though that would seem rather concerning to some, being excluded meant you had control over something nobody else did—but that rule only applied to this town.

This town, where everyone knows everything about everyone, where his mother grew up and stayed, the one his father never knew even existed, the one his older brother can’t wait to leave to create a new reality of his own—was the definition of a black hole.

“Morgan!”

Nathan didn’t stop walking when he heard his last name being mockingly shouted across the front of the school. He had no time to turn and argue with someone who was beneath every standard and principle he held along with his morals.

It wasn’t until he was forced to turn seconds later, once he felt a familiar set of hands shove him forward, and his palms met with the unforgiving gravel of the ground to break his fall.

Anger immediately flooded through him then, and, while feeling the pain numb in his knees and palms, he got to his feet just as quick as he fell, and swung a clenched fist across his bully’s jaw.

 

 

> 1987 / 5:23 P.M. / THE LONG ROAD

 

 

He was late again. Really late this time.

“Fuck my life,” the words are all too familiar, the most spoken within the last five years or so, ever since high school started nothing had been the same, and somewhere he knew nothing ever will stay the same—it will keep changing. His future experience will begin to shape him into a new person, it will warp him—and he didn’t want that at all.

In fact, Sam didn’t know what he wanted.

His perception of everything had been jumbled from the very beginning, his outlook on his small family, his friends, his (not so exciting) education, where he lived—God, this place was Hell itself—not one bit of it had an order. His time seemed to have a mind of his own.

“Fuck.”

Sam stops when he reaches the bus stop, the only structure standing in what felt like the middle of nowhere, to cover himself from the torrents of rain. He drops his rucksack at his feet and slumps under the dimly lit shelter, and breathes heavily.

He figured it was past four o’clock, considering that the sky was gradually darkening, and the slow drop in temperature; it was getting chilly, and he was only wearing a thin t-shirt under his denim jacket.

Bad idea, he thinks, everything is a bad idea.

There was no use waiting for a bus to come round at this time. He would be wasting more time waiting for one.

Once he catches his breath, Sam stands and grabs his rucksack, slings it over one shoulder before burrowing his fists in his jacket pockets, and begins walking again.

Only twenty more minutes.


	2. TIME’S GIFT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is back home late, Cassandra is angry, and Nathan begins to see them both in a whole new light.

> 1987 / 5:37 P.M. / Morgans' Residence / NATHAN

 

 

If I had the chance to change anything, it would be the invisible world that lay between my parents' marriage. That would be my priority, a goal, my mission to accomplish one way or another because there's so much pressure that emits from it, and it effects every one of us within our family. 

I would renew it to the point where it would never age, and they would both continue to have the same perception of each other for years to come, until death does them apart. 

The perception would be the fuzziness you felt every time you saw the person you liked. 

But that's all in my head, though.

"You lied to the principle, Nathan." 

My mother wasn't a stupid woman, that was for sure. But she wasn't the happy mother most kids my age seemed to have; you know the one with the oven mitts and the tightly curled hair and the sweet smile? That one.

"I didn't want any trouble." I say.

My mother was the parent that could withhold the job that was meant to be split over husband and wife.

She shakes her head at me, and purses her lips into a thin line, like she does when she's angry and tired of repeating herself. 

I'm sat at the kitchen table made for four, though only three inherit it at the moment; my mother is stood leant against the counter, beside the sink. She has her arms crossed against her chest.

It was disappointment she was feeling.

"Just tell the truth next time, Nathan."

I nod.

 

 

> 1987 / 5:58 P.M. / The Kitchen / NATHAN

 

 

Today was Friday.

My older brother Sam had a temporary half-day every Friday, due to the voluntary work experience he participated in, which was about forty-five minutes outside of our small town. 

He finishes the same time as school does, at three o'clock, and usually gets the bus back home from where he does his voluntary work.

That all together, counts up as an hour.

Meaning that he should be home around four in the afternoon.

But he was late.

"I'm here, I'm home, I'm safe," Those are the words I hear echoing from the front of the house, outside of the lounge, and traveling down the hallway to the front door we never really use, and my brother darts round the corner and passes the lounge doorway, momentarily coming back to it when he catches sight of me sitting on one of the sofas. 

"Where's Mom?" He asks, clearly out of breath, his cheeks flushed pink and one of his hands gripping the doorframe, like he's afraid to leave the darkness of the hallway. The shoulders of his denim jacket are dark with wet, and his hair is messier than usual. He blinks owlishly, and breathes.

"She's angry." I say, and I realise I don't answer his question. 

He rolls his eyes, his nostrils flare like a bull's for a moment, and I can see him visibly grit his teeth, eyes furious. "Yeah, I figured that a fucking hour ago when I started walking my way back here instead of—" His head jerks to the right just as he says that, but he's cut off, and his bitter expression falls into bewilderment when we both hear Mom's voice.

My brother seems to forget I'm there curled up on the couch with my homework, and he doesn't look back me when I notice the hardness etch itself back into his face, and all of a sudden he leaves the doorframe for the left side of the corridor, where the kitchen is, and I hear his shouts weave together with Mom's.

I get up then.

I push my homework aside and hurry out of the lounge to the kitchen. The tiles are like ice to my bare feet. 

Stood in the kitchen doorframe I watch my brother and mother pelt each other with insults and objections, and I don't really pay attention to what they are saying—Sam complaining about the majority of bus drivers being on strike-but then the topic faded as quickly as it had started, and they were screaming at each other about something else—something the three of us were all too familiar with-and automatically my ears blank out the noise. 

And everything seems to slow.

And everything seems to show up so clearly, the scene so vivid, like something from a drama film, the picture being looked at through a microscope, I could feel the undertones of it all, just by standing there watching.

My brother was just as tall as my mother, maybe an inch or two over, his face depicting the softened, more boyish replica of our father, his throat clenching and fists balling every time he spat out a word that was completely incoherent to my ears; noise was a blur. 

My mother was just as worse, her eyes wide, pink around the edges, like a rubbed-away vignette, defining her beryl-blue irises. Her cheeks were beginning to hollow and sink into her skull, from her side profile, and from my brother's, he definitely had her bone structure, but had stolen our father's features—Mom and Sam were so similar.

When I blink, my eyes are sore, and I hear everything at full volume, and the blur disappears the next instant, and time has reeled back to the present.

But I'm too late to know what's going on anymore.

Because my brother's hands are raking themselves through his damp hair, and he's seething out inaudible curses, and he's about to leave the kitchen, probably up to his room to break and bruise his knuckles, but before he does, the only clear thing I hear him retort to Mom is, "It'd be better if I just fucking disappeared too, wouldn't it?"

Those words carried the most unassuming box of everything sharp and thin, needles and pins seemingly spiking my mother with a venom she knew of, a poison she knew all too well, but never said to either of us, one that she had experience with before—with our father.

I stand there kind of awkwardly. 

I keep standing until I hear my brother slam his bedroom door shut.

I keep standing, waiting for Mom to say something.

She doesn't speak as she goes to slowly sit down the kitchen table, eyes unblinking.

A minute later they roll to meet my gaze, and that's when she speaks. 

"Don't go near your brother tonight, Nathan."


	3. THE HAPPENING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Saturday night—Sam is heading out with friends—and Nathan is feeling a sliver of jealously and uneasiness.

> 1987 / 11:13 A.M. / The Library / NATHAN

 

 

"I'm going out later on today."

But you made a promise!

It had been two weeks since the last time Sam had went for a night out with his circle of friends, which mainly consisted of four.

"Are you taking Crystal with you?" I ask him, and his eyebrows raise a little in question.

"Well, yeah, course I am." He says, and suddenly grins at me from across the desk we were sat at, a battered copy of Shakespeare's Macbeth open in front of him. He nibbles the end of his pen. "Why?"

I shrug. "You said we'd watch something tonight."

My brother licks his lips as he looks back down at his text and scribbles down a sentence. "Oh, yeah—Apocalypse Now, wasn't it?"

Idiot.

I have an urge right then and there to beat him on the head with the seven-hundred-paged encyclopaedia I'm skimming through, but a mental note pops up in that instant saying it's not worth smacking him back with anything, physically and verbally. He would just blink and suck on his bottom lip and forget what he'd said to set me off, automatically making me the culprit and him the victim. For no reason, too.

"No." I say. 

He's still not looking at me, and his words seem to stretch out when he's literally chewing the pen. "Then what was it?"

Maybe I was asking too much of him. 

I hardly thought about what work he did, I never contemplated what his grades were, I never wondered how many low scores he was getting in end-of-unit tests for Math, how many yellow post-it notes were being stuck to his English book written by his teacher, saying how inappropriate his creative writing assessment was, I never thought about what my brother was dealing with when in class. 

But maybe that was because he never showed what he was really feeling.

Or maybe it was just because he had no problems to really worry about.

But if he has no problems then why does it feel like he's ignoring me?

"Do you hate me?" I can't help myself but ask the most stupidest question yet, though despite how pathetic it sounded it caught my brother's attention.

"Do I hate you?" He repeats with eyebrows raised once more, and the pen drops from his teeth. 

"Yeah." I answer. "You never do anything with me anymore. We never go out. You're always with Crystal and—"

"Nathan," Sam cuts me off and holds our gaze with warm, commanding eyes, "for starters, I don't hate you, I love you more than Crystal, if that makes you feel more valued that you already are," he says it with sarcasm, and it makes me smile, "and secondly, when you turn sixteen you're not gonna want to have anything to do with me either, I'll be the one that's running after you, then."

Even though every time I was in doubt, and I needed help, and Sam was there to assure me, he never properly answered any of my questions. He answered them, yes, but not properly. 

Sam never answered with yes or no, it was always something along the lines of, 'that's entirely possible', or 'I can't say for sure', was that meant to be logic? Or was it just indecisiveness and being all-round unwilling to do anything I wanted him to do?

After a minute of indulging in the thick silence of the near-empty library we were sat in, I respond to the question he never really cared about, "The film was Jaws."

 

 

> 1987 / 7:38 P.M. / The Kitchen / NATHAN

 

 

I had expected Mom to call off Sam's little escapade that Saturday night, due to the heated argument he started with her the day before, but she didn't do anything to make life hard for him. It was like she'd completely forgotten about it. 

But that didn't necessarily mean she was totally content—she behaved in a reserved sort of manner, gingerly yet discreetly working her way around her eldest boy, with an approach he couldn't fight or argue with.

"Ten o'clock is your curfew, Samuel," she says from the kitchen sink, when Sam flies down the staircase, almost breaking the banister post when he turns to swing round to grab his shoes from the floor.

I'm sat at the kitchen table with the unfinished homework I had from last night, and I look up to let my eyes follow my brother's movements as he wanders into the kitchen, shrugging on his jacket.

"I thought I was staying over at Crystal's tonight?"

What.

Mom blinks, then sighs to herself, shaking her head at what was her mental faults, "Oh—yes, sorry, I remember you telling me that last week," she stops for a second and pulls a soft smile at him. It felt fake, but Sam wouldn't have noticed that, not from Mom—definitely from Dad—Sam was more naive than I was, despite him being the most streetwise, "Ten o'clock, I want a phone call from Crystal's house, and it better be you on the receiving line."

I turn back to my homework, and the motivation I had moments before had already fled. 

"Sure thing," my brother says, and he goes to kiss her cheek, then comes over to me—I can smell the cologne he never wears, the one he seems to save for nights out—he squeezes my shoulders from behind and presses his lips to one of my temples, and whispers, peppermint lingering in his breath, "We'll watch Jaws tomorrow."

I turn to him, "You promise?"

He smiles and catches my face between his hands, and gently pinches my cheeks with his thumbs. His hands are bigger than mine.

"For definite."

 

 

> 1987 / 10:07 P.M. / My Bedroom / NATHAN

 

 

I never didn't have my doubts when Sam ran off on a Saturday night.

For a sixteen year old he was mature enough, though. Puberty had made a vast change in him—I vaguely remember him having spindly limbs at age ten, hair lighter and softer than it was now, his facial features barely defined—but now he was verging into pre-adulthood.

I guess Mom trusted him enough to draw out his curfew to ten o'clock at night; that coming with the luxury of staying at his girlfriend's place. 

Mom could do whatever she thought was appropriate for Sam, and Sam was intelligent enough to live up to her expectations, all in order to get what he wanted—of course, I could see right through him. He was too easy. His manipulation skills were poorly honed and immature. The thing that annoyed me was that he didn't really have to be manipulative. 

Sam just seemed to get everything.

I was laid in my bed when I heard the house phone ring, and I propped myself up on my elbows when I heard Mom answer it, her voice content, kind of relieved, meaning Sam was okay. I felt okay too.

But when I turned out my light and curled up under my blanket and shut my eyes, ready to sleep off the lingering disappointment, somewhere, underneath the positivity and peace, it felt like Sam really wasn't all there.


	4. CHECKPOINT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra wakes up to find the local police at her doorstep, and Crystal spills the truth of what happened on Saturday night.

> 1987 / 9:12 A.M. / The Doorbell / NATHAN

 

 

The next morning was Sunday, and the majority of our neighbourhood would be preparing a roast, readying themselves to go to church, the normal stuff everyone here did. 

But not our family.

Mom had said religion was outdated in today's society, and money is the only thing that keeps us living. Having morality didn't mean anything anymore, not in this world. The complexity of things were continuously shaping, all day and every day.

'Because there's only so much time,' She said, a year and a half ago.

"When do you think he'll be back?" I ask my mother while nibbling on a piece of buttered toast she'd made for me. She's sat opposite with a mug of tea clasped in her palms. She blinks tiredly.

"He'll have the sense to come early. Crystal's parents won't want him there when she's showering."

I laugh at that, and she smiles.

The doorbell chimes, and I briefly wonder why Sam doesn't carry a house key with him, but Mom gets up anyway with a sigh, and opens the door—from the kitchen I can feel the draft flood in from the hallway, and as I take another bite of toast I hear a deep voice—one that definitely doesn't belong to my brother, one that definitely isn't him.

So I get up.

"Cassandra Morgan, am I correct?"

I hear the man speak as I pad down to the front door, and when I poke my head out from behind my Mom's silhouette the first thing I see is the colours of a police uniform.

And then everything just—crumbles.

Right then and there.

In my gut I had already figured out something wasn't right. I could feel the blurriness claw it's way into the backs of my eyes, and very slowly, trickling to my ears.

"Yes, that's correct. Is there something I can help you with?" My mother's voice is suddenly anxious.

"I've just had a call from a young lady and her family that lives in the next neighbourhood from here, says her name is Crystal," the police officer pauses, "she's wondering if you know if your son—Samuel Morgan ever came back to this house after ten o'clock last night."

 

 

 

> 1987 / 3 HOURS SINCE SAM'S DISAPPEARANCE / Nathan

 

 

 

'It'd be better if I just fucking disappeared too, wouldn't it?'

I knew it.

From waking up to having breakfast with laughter and smiles, came the shuddering presence of a police officer declaring that Sam was missing.

With no questions asked Mom had herself and I dressed in five minutes and were out headed for Crystal's house. Once we got there, I noticed another police car in the driveway, including the one that was previously at our place.

Mom had immediately went to Crystal and her two parents, whom were stood outside their house porch, another policeman stood with a notebook in hand-who seemed to turn and begin to question Mom.

I stood there in the midst of what was going on, not really paying attention, probably because I couldn't cope with the idea of my only brother turning up missing.

But it wasn't just the concept of going missing—Sam would never go missing. He just doesn't do that. He can't do that, he just can't.

I feel my gut plummet at how stupid it sounded.

Anyone can disappear.

"Nathan."

I look up from where I was staring-at an ant crawling across the footpath-to the sound of my name being said. When I turn my head I see Crystal stood with her arms tightly folded across her chest, as if she were trying to keep herself from breaking.

"My sister—she made some tea and biscuits." She says hesitantly. In the daylight I can see that she's been crying, because her eyes are pink, and her poorly wiped away mascara and eyeliner were still stuck to the waterline of her eyes. "Would you like some?" She adds.

I blink, and after a second I nod. "Sure."

 

 

 

> 1987 / 7 HOURS SINCE SAM'S DISAPPEARANCE / Nathan

 

 

 

Surprisingly, and for whatever reason, we sit in Crystal's bedroom with cups of tea in our hands, the biscuits her older sister had set out on a plate untouched, and we're thinking individually to ourselves, trying to process what was happening and what was going to happen from this moment onward. I hadn't been told what had happened, up until now—when Crystal lets out an inward sigh that seems to catch my attention.

"I'm sorry if this is too weird for you." She says quietly, and I shake my head in response.

"It isn't," I bite my lip, trying to think of what else to say, "Sam would be ecstatic if he saw me here bonding with you, honestly."

She chuckles a little at that, nods, sniffles, "Yeah, you're right."

She looks down at her tea, scratches her neatly filed nails against the glossed porcelain. "He lied last night, to your mom."

Her clouded eyes meet mine when she speaks, and she brushes back a lock of fair hair behind her ear. "He said he had to call her at ten, to say he was here," one corner of her lips quirked in regret at the thought, "but then an hour after we got back here, Bobby and Mark said they had made extra plans last minute, and Sam—well, you know how Sam gets all excited? He then thought it was a good idea to go out again, and...I went along with him, you know?"

She definitely had told the police and her parents about this, of course. I knew that. It wasn't like she was letting me in on a secret or anything. 

I ask, "Didn't your parents catch you guys going out again?"

Crystal shook her head. "We snuck out the back, where Mark and Bobby were waiting. The door was locked, and I couldn't find the key anywhere, and my mom would have seen us go to the front door—" she stops and looks out her bedroom window, and her face relaxes at the thought, like she had enjoyed it then, "—Sam thought it was only best if we climbed out my bedroom window, and drop down onto the sunroom roof below."

Classic Sam.

I think back to when he used to frequently injure himself each time he tried to climb the side of our house, accidentally breaking the gutter or down-pipe whilst doing it. He had sprained his ankle badly once, also cutting his fingers and broken several nails.

"...Where did you guys go?" I say.

Crystal's eyes glance across the rug we were sat on. She fidgets with the tassels. "We went down the long road. Past that one bus shelter, you know?"

I nod, and she swallows. "We went past that, and down to where the freight trains come in. We went to hang about the tracks, just—" she lets out a pained sort of laugh, "—we were just fucking about, you get me? But then—this is where I don't remember much—" her breath catches in her throat, and I can see how frustrated she is with the situation, and to some extent I can understand what she's feeling. If anything, between the two of us, I should be the one in the most hysterics.

But for some reason I wasn't.

"The police think he's just ran off somewhere." She says lowly. "Just because Mark and Bobby and I had said we'd all been drinking a bit."

When I don't interject she continues. "We sat on the tracks for an hour or so. We did some dares, and after that one of the freight trains came passing through, and we all—well, Sam didn't move to our side of the tracks when it came close, and...it took about seven minutes or so for it to fully pass, but when it did..." She's rapt up in the memory at this point, because she's hardly blinking. "Sam—he...he wasn't _there_."

 

 

 

> 1987 / 10 HOURS SINCE SAM'S DISAPPEARANCE / Nathan

 

 

 

I keep thinking that there's more to the situation than just remembrance and evidence, it felt as if the police weren't doing anything, and everyone was just standing huddled with their arms folded and heads bowed in a silence that shouldn't be even existing at this point—nobody has fucking died, they've just temporarily turned invisible.

Mom's anxiety was through the roof in only a matter of hours, once the situation had properly sank in to her system, and now that she fully understood what was going on, she wasn't taking any of it that well.

I felt a little inhuman when I watched her wrap her woollen cardigan around her bony shoulders, lips thin and eyebrows furrowed in excessive thought. I felt inhuman because I didn't feel anything.

Yes, I was worried, I was just as concerned as my mother, but I didn't feel as affected by the fact that my only brother was out there somewhere—alone.

"Nathan," Mom is stood in my bedroom doorway at twelve in the morning. Neither of us could sleep. I'm laid on my back in the middle of my carpeted floor, staring up at the ceiling until she says my name, and I turn my head to meet her eyes.

"What?" I ask.

"Come to bed with me."

I'm pretty sure any other eleven year old boy would have definitely said no way to that, but I didn't.

"Jesus Christ, your feet are freezing," She brings one arm around me, her grasp around my shoulders almost painful, but I ignored the feeling and shut my eyes.

After a moment of listening to our own breathing, and the hum of the boiler from downstairs in the utility room, my mother sighs into the darkness of her bedroom.

"When your brother was first born, I hardly ever kept him in his cot." She says in a whisper. "He always used to sleep on my chest."

"That's dangerous." I utter out, and she hums.

"Yeah. It was."

"Maybe that's why he's so reckless."

She hums gently at my comment, and squeezes me.

"Yeah, probably."


	5. A DEAL WITH GOD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day has passed with no report on Sam’s whereabouts. Nathan has started to piece his disappearance—and is confronted by his peers.

> 1987 / 21 HOURS SINCE SAM'S DISAPPEARANCE / Nathan

 

 

 

From that Sunday morning onwards I suddenly became noticed throughout my school.

On one of the noticeboards in the hallway there was a black and white picture of my smiling brother with bold capitals printed above his photo: MISSING.

The majority of people in my classes were sympathetic, almost speaking as if my brother was never going to come back, and others didn't say a thing but sent me soft looks from across their desks. My teachers held me behind classes, beginning to notice me more and put me at the head of their pastoral care list.

It was complete bullshit.

I didn't want any of it, and I didn't need any of it. All of it was entirely unnecessary.

On Monday morning when I was walking through the front playground, I received various glances and whispers, though I ignored those, and I stopped and turned and searched everyone's faces until I found who I was looking for.

The boy that shoved me to the ground last Friday was called James.

The kid I also (unintentionally) punched in the face, 'in the name of reparation' I had told the principle that day after school, when one of the teachers had caught sight of us, and both our mothers were immediately called to the school office.

When I find James in the crowd of passing kids I walk towards him, and when he notices me his eyes widen a little—his right eye is slightly purple—and his brows furrow inwards, clearly ready to insult, probably expecting me to insult back.

But when I came close, I said, "Sorry for giving you a black eye."

He blinks, and I see that he's clearly surprised, and his face instantly softens. "It's—It's fine, don't worry about it," He glances away from my stare for a moment before shoving his hands in his pockets. "I'm sorry for shoving you. And...for everything else that's...happened over the last few years."

Maybe having my brother disappear was a sort of blessing to relieve me of pressure from others.

"...I hope you find your brother." James adds. "I couldn't imagine losing my little sister."

 

 

> 1987 / 27 HOURS SINCE SAM'S DISAPPEARANCE / Nathan 

 

 

When I remember James mentioning how he could never imagine losing his little sister, I began to realise that when people looked at me in the halls of school they were really just seeing themselves, even if they didn't have any brothers of sisters; they were still seeing themselves in my place. 

I felt like a mirror that day. I was mirroring other's interpretations of the situation, saying how they could never 'imagine' what it's like.

Not that what was happening at school really mattered.

Later that night, when I could hear Mom downstairs talking to someone over the house phone, I padded down the corridor and slipped into my brother's dormant bedroom. I closed the door quietly and leant against it, and breathed in what I was surrounded by.

Sam's bed was unmade, the sheets ruffled, and his pillows dipped in their middles. His wardrobe was open, two wooden coat hangers hanging off the loose knobs, denim jeans hung up inside along with a bomber jacket and a few shirts and hoodies.

My eyes drew away from the wardrobe to his dresser. I went toward it, and idly opened the first drawer to find nothing but his underwear and socks, and a packet of opened condoms buried beneath the fabric.

I closed the drawer.

Sam had always said he wanted to leave here.

I go to his nightstand and open the first drawer; that's where he kept the things he needed for everyday use. His wallet and ID were gone, including the spare house key Mom had given him. All that was left was a pair of headphones, a few bronze coins and a cassette player.

I look at it for moment before taking it out along with the headphones, and I sit down on his bed.

I put the headphones on, and press down on the play button, and it clicks and continues from where the music was left off.

 

 

_'—It's you and me—you won't be unhappy.'_

 

 

It was one of Mom's tapes.

 

 

_'If I only could, I'd make a deal with God, and I'd get him to swap our places, be running up that road, be running up that hill, be running up that build—'_

 

 

I press the stop button, take the headphones off, and put everything back into my brother's top drawer, and leave his bedroom, and I finally feel myself pay attention to the reality—to something I'd always known.

Sam hadn't disappeared.

He had left.


	6. FORTY YEARS FORWARD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan starts his trek to where Sam disappeared with the company of an anxious Crystal, and finds a piece of possible evidence at the tracks.

> 1987 / 47 HOURS SINCE SAM'S DISAPPEARANCE / Nathan

 

 

The next day was a Tuesday.

Just after eight o'clock in the morning, I went downstairs and said to Mom I felt sick. With no questions asked she told me to go back to bed, and that she'd bring up some tea.

"You're not sick. I know you aren't." She says softly, while brushing her cold fingers across my forehead. It feels like she's about to force my eyelids shut. "I'll let you stay off for the rest of the week, if you feel like it. Your teachers have been told of what's happened."

"I want Sam." I answer.

She nods, and her jaw clenches, and she whispers before leaning across to kiss my cheek, "Me too, Nathan."

"Are you going to work?"

She nods again.

"When will you be back?"

She thinks for a few seconds, "Around four," and drags out another sigh, "I'll make some sandwiches before I go, for your lunch."

As soon as I heard my mother's car pull out of the driveway and crawl down the street, I got out of bed and went downstairs into the kitchen to the house phone.

I dialled Crystal's house number, and waited for someone to pick up.

"Hello?"

It was her father.

I swallow. "Um—hi Mr. Collins, is Crystal home?"

"Yes...yes she is, would you like to speak to her?"

"Yes—please, if that'd be alright."

"Sure thing, just hold for a moment," I hear him pause then, and after a minute or two I hear Crystal's voice.

"Hello?"

Her voice is faint.

"Crystal, it's Nathan."

"...Shouldn't you be at school?"

"I was gonna ask you the same thing, y'know."

She hums. "Yeah...well...Dad's letting me off just for today. Is there something you need?"

"I want you to show me where you guys were on Saturday night."

 

 

 

> 1987 / 50 HOURS SINCE SAM'S DISAPPEARANCE / Nathan

 

 

 

When Sam was fourteen and I was nine, while our rooms were being repainted we had to sleep in the lounge for a couple of nights. He stole the stereo from the garage and used to play Daryl Hall & John Oates on full blast before Mom would put us to bed. Sam knew the lyrics to 'Out Of Touch' off by heart.

He used to hide the stereo down the back of the sofa, and covered it with his blankets and made just enough room for the buttons to be seen and touched. Every time Mom came in to tell him to turn the music off—a nervous wreck with the volume, he'd press the stop button a second before she entered the room, and when she'd blink confusedly we'd both start giggling.

When she wasn't there, somewhere outside in the evening of the back garden, hanging up the washing, before my brother properly became accustomed to the fairly new tape, he would be graffitiing one of his school text books, muttering out the occasional lyrics he knew the most, "You're out of touch—I'm out of time," his shoulders were slim and undefined back then. His mannerisms were still slightly childish. He was a bit of a dork. He still kind of was, actually. He never really outgrew his obsession with pirates.

And that was only two years ago.

And within those two years it felt as if we had just been born into the world.

"How old are you again?" Crystal was apprehensive the entire trek to the area of the freight train tracks. She had told her parents she needed some fresh air, that she was going for a run, and we met at the end of her street. 

"Eleven." I answer as we walk down the gravelled pathway to the tracks.

She rubs her arms, even though it wasn't that cold. "I keep thinking you're like, what, fourteen?"

I try to smile. "Am I wise?"

She shakes her head at that. "You seem to have more sense than Sam. That's all."

"Not enough of it, though."

I can feel her tense at my response, and we both remain quiet until we reach the railroad.

When we stop walking she unfolds her arms, and asks, "What are you looking for?"

I blink down at the metal that seemed to be hammered into the ground of stones and rocks, and ignore her question. "Where was he standing?"

She lifts her head and I follow her gaze as she speaks and points to the right. "Over there."

Even though the area had been partly sealed off with yellow tape, I didn't think anything of it, because in my head, this wasn't even close to a crime scene—there was no evidence to prove that it was a crime scene. Not from what Crystal had told me, not from what she, Bobby and Mark had supposedly told the police; words didn't solve everything.

You needed to be physically handling the story in order to understand and suppress a solution for its ending. That was the way it worked. That was the only way it did work.

I pull up the yellow tape and duck underneath it, and my brother's girlfriend follows afterwards.

She kind of stands there awkwardly, not really sure of what to do but lean on one hip and nibble at her nails and occasionally worry her bottom lip. She wasn't wearing any of that blue eyeshadow today, I'd noticed, and her hair was tied back—she never tied her hair back.

I look around.

I step from where she, Mark and Bobby would have been stood, on the left side of the sealed-off track, and glance to the opposite end in front of me.

I then walk across the metal in strides, and stood where my brother would have stood.

When I look up Crystal is staring at me, stood directly opposite.

She blinks a few times, and realises she was caught up in a daze. She briefly points to my feet. "That's where he was. Before the train came past." There's a good several feet between us.

I try to imagine a freight train whizzing past me.

The shockwave of air would hit me in the face and pull back my hair, warm carbon emitting from its wheels and industrial metal brazed by the evening sun.

But nothing comes to my head when I look left and right, both ways seemingly endless, the tracks rolling into the opposing horizons.

I turn left and start to walk, away from the sealed area in yellow tape, away from Crystal, who stays where she's stood.

"Damn," I utter under my breath.

There was just nothing.

I contemplate about turning round and admitting the high possibility of my brother being wiped off the face of the earth, but that was until I stepped on something that didn't crunch like rock and gravel, dirt and earth; it clinked against the the stone and slid against the rubber sole of my shoe.

I looked down and moved my foot away from where I had stepped, to find a metal lighter.

"Did you find anything?" I hear Crystal call, but I don't turn around to her yet.

Reaching down, I pick it up.

The model was relatively new. It had been released within the last several years. It was a metal zippo lighter—my father had one at home somewhere.

I rolled it over in my palm, the metal beaten and rough against my skin, and I lifted the lid to find no flame igniting.

It needs a refill.

I closed it and turned it over once. There was a scratched and clearly faded star engraved on to its body, including the number 76 that was on one side of the lid, another two stars on either side of it.

I wince a little, realising that the number must have been the date of which the batch of lighters had been released, which was also the year I was born.

Before Crystal calls out again I slip the lighter into my jean pocket, and turn round to meet her anxious face.

"No, there's nothing here."


	7. LEFT BEHIND

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Morgan family quickly find themselves in a divided state—a violent one. Nathan continues to ponder on his latest discovery.

> 1987 / FIVE DAYS SINCE SAM’S DISAPPEARANCE / Nathan

 

 

 

 

 

It worsened.

“Where the hell have you been?”

It was starting to kill all of us.

“I had work to attend to.”

My brother’s disappearance had turned into a plague of individual guilt and resentment that had affected each and everyone of us. Crystal’s suffering had worsened within the last few days, and after that day at the railroad to date we hadn’t spoken a word to one another. 

Mom had been calling the police frequently, even though at day three of Sam’s disappearance she was told to stop.

When my father came home from work on day five, he was first contacted by the police and was asked several questions before being left like the rest of us.

Mom had started to hold her resentment on him rather than herself.

“Do you even care?” I remember listening to their conversation outside of the kitchen. Her voice was weak and hoarse.

“Of course I care.” My father says.

“Y-You’re not concerned that something could happen to your eldest child?”

“Cassandra, Samuel is smart enough to not—“

“You’re not all worried if we find him dead—“

“Cassandra!!!”

I had only ever heard my father properly shout when Sam had once screamed at him, ranting about how he’d leave us if he could, and in an instant my brother had been pulled off his feet and received a slap to the face to shock some discipline into him. I was scared out of my skin that day, and felt numb for days after that, because Mom was furious with my father, and went on to pelt the the bone-chinatea cups at him, and rake her nails across his face, somewhere hoping to draw blood for laying a hand on my brother. 

When I hear my father shout I step out of the darkened hallway and into the kitchen to meet him stood with his fists balled, and my mother clearly prepared to back off. Her eyes turn wide when she sees me, “Nathan—get upstairs to your room. I don’t want you involved in this.”

But I don’t move. I don’t move because I don’t want to. I don’t move until after I speak to my father, as he stoops over me.

“Mom’s always right,” I say, “you care because you have to, and you know if you don’t you’ll never be able to forgive yourself. You wouldn’t care if Sam didn’t come back.”

My father just glowers down at me and sharply turns back to my mother, “You’ve raised your kids to be like this, Cassandra.”

Mom blinks, and her jaw drops, “What?—MY kids? What are the hell are you on about? Nathan and Sam are—“

“No, you push me away from them and expect me to come back with all the abuse? All I’m doing is paying your fucking bills. What the fuck will you do then if I stop doing that?”

My mother’s expression suddenly darkens and she mutters, “You’re a fucking narcissist.”

“No—I didn’t ask for any of this,” my father reaches for his coat then, the once warm eyes that he’d passed on to my brother ablaze with a chilling unpredictability, an unpredictability I felt like I could only see.

My mother comes forward then, the hollowness of her face drawing inwards even more with anger, and she violently goes to grasp his shoulder, “ _Don’t you DARE think you can just_ —“ and is forced backwards in an instant; I hear the sound of her head hitting the kitchen counter, and my blood runs cold as she stifles a cry, my father’s fingers reaching into her hair, pulling and pulling, shouting his lungs out; he’s clasped a hand somewhere at her throat, because my eyes catch sight of his calloused fingers bruising her skin—

—and the doorbell rings.

My father’s grasp immediately loosens. The doorbell a definite shock to wake him from the violence. “Get out.” Mom says tonelessly. She shoves him away from her when he stands unwavering, and she leaves the room after making hard eye-contact with me, her expression practically screaming:  leave .

My father stands somewhat breathless, he rubs a hand over his face, pinches the bridge of his nose and shuts his eyes before turning to me.

“You’ve got her face.” He says flatly, “your brother has her attitude,” and he shakes his head, “neither of you are like me.”

“Am I meant to say it’s a bad thing?” I snap.

A muscle twitches in his jaw. “I don’t expect anything from you.”

“Even after bringing us into existence?”

I can see him hesitate.

And he looks so much like Sam when he’s frustrated.

My father’s eyes lock onto mine, and this is the part where he will leave—and will never turn back—and he tells me what no father should tell their child, “Your brother is the reason you’re living.”

 

 

 

 

 

> 1987 / SIX DAYS SINCE SAM’S DISAPPEARANCE / Nathan

 

 

 

 

 

Your brother is the reason you’re living.

It hit me hard, then. And I mean, really hard. 

My brother was meant to stay curled up in my mother’s womb, he was meant to hide forever as a parasite with a heartbeat, the moment of his conception never meaning to happen. 

But it did, for whatever reason.

Sam was brought into existence by mistake.

And because of him, he also triggered ‘God’s plan’—for me. 

I didn’t know why my father had brought that up. Especially then. Mom was in rage at him, and I’d rarely seen her like that, maybe only once or twice in my entire life, up until now. She had screamed at him to never come back, and to never show his face in the neighbourhood again.

Ten minutes after she had calmed down, she apologised to me. When I just shrugged she burst into tears.

For some reason I felt nothing throughout those two hours.

For some reason I felt like whatever was happening now, in the present, really didn’t matter.

For some reason I felt…almost…at peace.

I wasn’t sure what to name it. Or call it. I couldn’t describe the feeling. It was somewhere in between of succumbing to your own sloth and sub-conscious self-loathing, and the relief of a hidden weight, a pressure not even yourself could see or understand—but all you know is that it had gone.

The hidden weight had seemed to last seven days.

I’m laid on my back on my bed, and I’m playing with the zippo lighter I’d found at the tracks with Crystal. I kept wondering what it must have went through to be that scratched and battered, the engraving and black paint wearing away with what looked like a solid twenty years of age. 

But it just couldn’t have.

I’d vaguely noticed the same type of model being sold in several garages, and that had only been released within the last few years or so, as far as I could recall.

So why did this one seem so out of place? 

When I knock back the metal lid, there’s no flame.

I sit up, and give the lighter a shake, and the extra weight of it seems to disappear in my hands. It had definitely ran out. 

I roll it over in my palm and look at the star with the number seventy-six printed above, one last time before storing it away in my top drawer of my bedside table.


End file.
